October Sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia

We are pleased to advise details of our next sailing from Sheerness to Walvis Bay.

The vessel is currently expected to sail on 14th October.

The ETA in Walvis Bay is the 4th November.

We accept all types of rolling cargo including cars, vans, trucks, coaches, buses, trailers and heavy plant.

For rates and bookings please call Glen or Graham now on 01474 331146.

Alternatively email: glen (@) wavecrest.co.uk

August sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia

We are pleased to advise details of our next sailing from Sheerness to Walvis Bay.

The vessel is currently expected to sail on 24th August.

The ETA in Walvis Bay is the 12th September.

We accept all types of rolling cargo including cars, vans, trucks, coaches, buses, trailers and heavy plant.

For rates and bookings please call Glen or Graham now on 01474 331146.

Alternatively email: glen (@) wavecrest.co.uk

Looking for help with shipping to or from New Zealand?

 
Auckland, New Zealand - picture by Tim Sheerman-Chase 

 If you need help shipping a vehicle, personal effects or commercial freight to or from New Zealand you've certainly come to the right place.

Wavecrest Ltd has been shipping freight of all types between the UK and New Zealand since 1994.

Services provided include -

Regular full and part load container services to/from Auckland, Christchurch (Lyttelton), Port Chalmers, Wellington, Nelson etc.

Regular consolidation container service to/from Auckland. Containers are loaded/unpacked at our own warehouse in Gravesend, Kent.

Regular ro/ro departures from Southampton to Auckland and other New Zealand ports for cars, commercial vehicles, plant etc.

Shipping of classic cars and motorbikes

Shipping of caravans and motor homes

Regular air freight services to/from all major UK/NZ airports

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Here are just a few examples of some recent shipments we have undertaken...

Export packing and removal of furniture and antiques from Chelsea, London to three separate addresses in Auckland.

Five single deck buses from Southampton to Auckland and Nelson.

A decommissioned Sea Harrier from Yorkshire to Auckland - more about that on a future post!

Several vintage Ford Escort rally cars participating in the Silver Fern Rally shipped to Lyttelton and back.

A 1955 Austin Healey shipped from Lyttelton

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If you have a shipment you need to send to New Zealand or ship back to the UK and would like further information on our services please give Glen or Graham a call now on 01474 331146 or email glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Shipping to South Africa

We recently loaded this Land Rover Defender in a 20' container for shipment to Cape Town, South Africa.

The owner was a South African national returning home after living and working in the UK for ten years.

She was able to qualify for an import duty waiver on the vehicle as a returning resident.

We have been shipping cars, motorbikes and personal effects to South Africa for over twenty years and have reliable local agents at all the main ports who can assist with import customs clearance formalities on arrival.

Our colleagues in South Africa are also able to advise on the duty waiver/import permit process.

For further information about shipping to South Africa, please contact us on 01474 331146 or e-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk now.

Testimonial

We started our 21st year in business off today with a nice testimonial from one of our classic car shippers who recently imported this Triumph Mayflower on our service from New Zealand.

"The service from GT International Logistics in New Zealand together with Wavecrest in the UK at this end was impressive, the paperwork was easy to do and I would recommend them to all"

If you need advice on shipping a car anywhere in the world or freight to move to/from New Zealand, we would welcome your enquiries.

Please call Glen or Debbie on 01474 331146 for further assistance.

Classic VW Camper's Longest Journey

Here at Wavecrest we are often asked to ship classic VW Camper vans both to and from the UK.

 

More often that not they are shipped into the UK from countries such as the USA, South Africa, Australia or like these ones, from New Zealand. They are quite often restoration projects.

 

Recently, however, we were asked to ship the VW Camper van pictured above from the UK to Vancouver as the owner was emigrating to Canada with his family. He did not want to leave his pride and joy behind.

 

The van was dropped off at our warehouse in Gravesend, Kent where it was then carefully lashed and secured into a 20' container for the 11,500 mile voyage.

 

The van was originally imported into the UK from Germany and since then the owner has embarked on a number of adventures including driving it across the Sahara to Morocco and back.

 

The 30 day voyage to Vancouver will be it's longest journey yet.

 

If you would like help shipping your VW Camper to or from the UK we'd be pleased to hear from you.

 

Tel: 01474 331146 or e-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk for further assistance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia

Our next roll on / roll off sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia will be departing from Sheerness, Kent on 26th May.

All cargo will need to be delivered to Sheerness by 24th May.

We ship all types of vehicles including cars, 4x4's, pick ups, vans, trucks and buses.

The expected arrival date in Walvis Bay is currently the 16th June.

If you have cargo in transit via Walvis Bay to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia etc our efficient local Namibian agent can assist with customs clearance formalities, on-forwarding etc.

For a competitive shipping quote or to make a booking, please kindly contact Wavecrest Ltd on 01474 331146 or e-mail glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Consolidation service to New Zealand

Wavecrest Ltd operates a regular consolidated container shipping service from the UK to New Zealand ports.

Here are a few examples of the cargo loaded in the most recent container to Auckland...

We arranged collection of this Chrysler Crossfire from a dealer in Essex on behalf of the importer in New Zealand.

The car was driven up our purpose built loading ramp into a 40' container and then blocked and secured to prevent movement during the six week sea voyage to New Zealand.

The Triumph Bonneville motorbike above was delivered into our Gravesend, Kent warehouse where we constructed a purpose built pallet for it before loading and securing in the container.

Wavecrest Ltd has many year's experience of shipping motorbikes of all shapes and sizes, not only to New Zealand but also other countries including South Africa, Australia, Canada and the USA.

 

This, and two other large crates contained bus windscreens. We regularly ship buses and minibuses to New Zealand.

If you have a vehicle, personal effects or commercial freight to ship to New Zealand, please contact Wavecrest Ltd on Tel: 01474 331146 for competitive rates and further information.

Next sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia

Our next roll on / roll off sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia will be departing from Sheerness, Kent on 27th March.

All cargo will need to be delivered to Sheerness by 22nd March.

We ship all types of vehicles including cars, 4x4's, pick ups, vans, trucks and buses.

The expected arrival date in Walvis Bay is currently the 12th April.

If you have cargo in transit via Walvis Bay to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia etc our efficient local Namibian agent can assist with customs clearance formalities, on-forwarding etc.

For a competitive shipping quote or to make a booking, please kindly contact Wavecrest Ltd on 01474 331146 or e-mail glen@wavecrest.co.uk


Please also check our shipping to Namibia web site for sailing schedule updates.

Ferrari Mondial shipped to South Africa

We recently shipped this 1978 Ferrari Mondial to Cape Town, South Africa. It was safely loaded and secured in a 20' container at our warehouse in Gravesend, Kent.

The car belonged to a South African national returning back to Cape Town after working in the UK for a number of years.

Due to his circumstances he was able to get apply for a duty waiver for the car.

If you are a South African national planning on returning permanently to South Africa, you too may meet the criteria for a duty waiver and be able to import your car economically from the UK.

To check whether you meet the criteria you are welcome to complete our free duty waiver assessment form now.

Wavecrest Ltd has been shipping cargo to South Africa since 1994. For rates and further information, please call 01474 331146 or e-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Cars for the Far East

Wavecrest Ltd has been handling shipments of vehicles of all descriptions since our foundation in 1994.

Recently there has been a boom in the shipment of new and used luxury cars such as the Mercedes E250's shown above, from the UK to countries in the Far East.

Cars are usually loaded at our own warehouse facility in Gravesend, Kent and shipped through Tilbury, Thamesport or Felixstowe.

This brand new Mercedes CLS was packed into a 40' container with another car and shipped to Thailand.

The car was carefully driven up our purpose designed loading ramp and into the 40' container.

It was then lashed using four ratchet straps to prevent movement in the container during the sea voyage to Thailand. For additional security timber was used to block the wheels.

If you would like more information about loading cars in containers or shipping to the Far East,
please contact Wavecrest Ltd on Tel: 01474 331146 or e-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Next Sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia

Photo by J T Hetzel

Our next roll on / roll off sailing to Walvis Bay, Namibia will be departing from Sheerness, Kent on 2nd September. All cargo will need to be delivered to Sheerness by 31st August.

We are accepting all types of vehicles for this sailing including cars, 4x4's, pick ups, vans, trucks and buses.

The expected arrival date in Walvis Bay is currently the 18th September.

If you have cargo in transit via Walvis Bay to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia etc our efficient local Namibian agent can assist with customs clearance formalities, on-forwarding etc.

For details of freight rates or to make a booking, please contact Wavecrest Ltd on 01474 331146 or e-mail glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Wavecrest Update - New Zealand, Namibia and.... Peru

A couple of firsts so far this month.

Earlier this week we shipped our first armoured personnel carrier (similar to the one above). For anyone interested in the technical stuff it was an ex British Army GKN Sankey FV432 and weighed in at around 15 tonnes. The FV432 has been widely used by the Army since the 1960's but is no longer in front line service.

The APC was sold to a military vehicle collector in New Zealand and shipped roll on / roll off from Southampton to Auckland. Don't suppose he'll have any trouble finding a parking space at the supermarket!

Due to the very favourable exchange rate between Sterling and the New Zealand Dollar we are shipping vehicles of all shapes to Auckland on a weekly basis. Apart from the APC other recent examples include racing cars, sports cars, motor homes and buses.

Another first. We unpacked our first container from deepest darkest Peru at our warehouse in Gravesend. It was loaded with copper strips and bars in long wooden cases. Due to the length of the cases the client was unable to unpack the container at their own premises.

Fortunately we have many year's experience of handling long length cargo such as this and were able to safely unload the container and deliver the cases to the client's premises in Manchester.

Finally we continue to experience record bookings of cars, vans and trucks on our monthly roll on / roll off service from Sheerness to Walvis Bay, Namibia. For details of our forthcoming sailings please visit www.shippingtonamibia.co.uk or call us on 01474 331146.

The Wavecrest Weekly - Spotlight on New Zealand

We have recently handled a number of car shipments on our regular service from New Zealand to the UK. Here are a few pictures...

One of two Mercedes DTM cars shipped over for the owner to use during a holiday break in Europe.

For the same owner, two Rolls Royce convertibles.... At the other extreme two 1957 VW Kombi vans in need of a great deal of TLC!

Finally a 1947 MG TC. The owners, together with another couple based in the UK who own a similar MG TC,  will be driving it back to New Zealand via Russia, Mongolia, China and Singapore.

They expect the trip to take around four months (excluding the final sea voyage from Singapore back to New Zealand). This adventure made it into the national press here in the UK and has also been featured on television news programmes in New Zealand.

You can follow their journey at this link and if you need any advice about importing a car from New Zealand, please contact us on Tel: 01474 331146 or e-mail glen@wavecrest.co.uk

The Wavecrest Weekly No 5

A slightly belated Wavecrest weekly this time as I've been feeling a bit under the weather.

The Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise made a brief call at Falmouth, Cornwall. Amongst other things our local sub agent was called upon to ensure some very important supplies made it on board - six jars of Marmite and 500 tea bags for the Captain!

When you're away at sea for months you need to have a few creature comforts.

As mentioned in the last Wavecrest Weekly, the Government of Zimbabwe will be introducing a maximum five year age limit on imported used vehicles with effect from the 1st July 2011.
We have already booked a number of vehicles for our next sailing from Sheerness to Walvis Bay, Namibia on 30th May. The closing date for this sailing is the 25th May.

This week we have arranged the shipment of a vehicle to Auckland, New Zealand specially adapted for use by the disabled. The vehicle will be shipped roll on / roll off from Southampton. Apart from shipping to Auckland, we also move cargo to other New Zealand ports such as Wellington, Tauranga and Lyttelton.

In the other direction, 6 x 40' containers of cars have arrived at Tilbury on our regular import service from New Zealand. The cars range from 1957 VW vans for restoration to Rolls Royce drophead coupes. I will post a few pictures up in due course.

More news next week.

Picture by Mrbill

The Wavecrest Weekly - No 1

This is the first of what will hopefully become a weekly blog post about the latest activities here at Wavecrest.

It will also be somewhere to pass on any shipping and international trade news items as well as general tips and other things I stumble across along the way which may be useful or interesting.

The run up to the Easter holidays has been quite busy so far.

Last week we were asked to arrange the urgent shipment of a BMW car from the UK to New Zealand  on the roll on roll off service from Southampton.

Our client (based in New Zealand) had purchased the car from a dealer in Swindon and needed it to arrive in Auckland in time to participate in the Targa Rally.

On the subject of shipping between the UK and New Zealand, we are expecting several shipments of vintage cars to arrive at Tilbury next month. These include two 1957 VW Kombis coming in for restoration and a 1947 MG. The MG is being imported temporarily while the owner makes a tour of the UK and Europe.

We have quoted for several used truck shipments from the UK to Africa in particular Ghana and Namibia. We have regular roll on roll off sailings from Tilbury to Tema and Takoradi and a monthly sailing from Sheerness to Namibia (please see http://www.shippingtonamibia.co.uk/ for latest sailing information).

The Greenpeace vessel Esperanza which we recently co-ordinated in Scotland is currently still in UK waters and we have again been asked to assist with crew changes etc at her next two ports of call.

The recent events in Japan continue to affect the shipping industry. The significant drop in the volume of export container shipments from Japan has put downward pressure on freight rates from the Far East to Europe.

Whilst this is good news for importers in the UK it is not sustainable in the long term. The shipping lines have to be able to make a decent return on their capital if they are to invest in new ships and equipment for the future.

We have heard reports of ships being detained and containers arriving from Japan being checked for radiation following the leaks at the Fukushima plant.

More next week.

Car Shipping Scam Alert

Last week we received a call out of the blue from a worried gentleman in Austria.

It would appear that he had bought a car from an on-line dealer who had agreed to transport it for him from Northern Ireland to his residence in Austria.

The customer paid the dealer EUR 3800 for the car and transport.

A couple of days after he paid the EUR 3800, the dealer contacted him again to ask him to pay another EUR 1900 to cover transit insurance which would be refunded on safe delivery of the car to Austria.

They told him that normally the insurance would be EUR 3800 but the seller of the vehicle had agreed to cover the other half.

Without transit insurance, they said, they would not be able to obtain an export permit from the Ministry of Export and furthermore, storage charges would accrue at EUR 380 for every day the transport to Austria was delayed whilst waiting for the export permit.

At this point the client in Austria began to smell a rat and this is when he contacted us for our opinion.

We had to break the bad news that this whole deal was a scam.

1. He made payment to the fraudulent dealer by Western Union. No bona fide company would ask for a payment using this method.

2. Transit insurance is optional.

3. Transit insurance would only be a 1-2% of the value of the car and would not be refunded on safe delivery.

4. No export permit is required to ship goods between EU member countries.

5. There is no such thing as a Ministry of Export in the UK.

I recommended that he immediately report the fraud to the Austrian Police and agreed to report it to the Police in the UK as well.

I duly called up the dedicated hot line to report a fraud and spoke to a very nice lady there.

She took down my contact details and a few details of the fraud and said I would be contacted by an officer.

This was last Thursday and I am still waiting for that call.... so much for the hot line!

It would appear that the police, in the UK at least, do not consider "small scale" frauds such as this a high priority. Not much consolation to the victims.

The fraudsters' very professional and plausible looking web site is still active today - and probably still ensnaring yet more unfortunate victims.

The web site concerned is called Safe Shipping Express Company and can be found at http://www.ss-express.co.cc

Do not enter into any transactions with this company and NEVER ever pay for anything on-line using Western Union.

You have been warned.

Next Sailing from UK to Namibia

We are still booking cars, trucks, coaches and other vehicles for shipment to Walvis Bay, Namibia on our next roll on roll off sailing from Sheerness.

The vessel is closing at 1000 hrs on Friday 4th March and currently due to sail on the 9th March. The ETA in Walvis Bay is 24th March.

If you would like a competitive quotation for shipping your vehicle to Walvis Bay, please call us on 01474 331146 or e-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk now.

New web site launched

This week we have launched a new web site specifically for clients who wish to ship a car, motorbike or personal effects from the UK to South Africa.

Under certain criteria South African nationals who are returning to South Africa after working in the UK may be permitted to import a car and benefit from a full duty waiver. In view of the high price of cars in South Africa this can represent a welcome cost saving.

We have been assisting clients with their shipping requirements to South Africa since we started operations in 1994. Cars, bikes and personal effects are loaded in containers at our warehouse for shipment to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

Cars are also shipped on roll on roll off services from Southampton to Port Elizabeth and Durban and from Sheerness to Durban.

If you would like a quotation for shipping to South Africa or information about the duty waiver, please visit www.shippingtosa.co.uk or alternatively e-mail: sales@shippingtosa.co.uk